p In analysing the objective conditions of the growth of the democratic revolution into a socialist revolution in Russia Lenin showed that two groups of contradictions had taken shape in the country in the epoch of imperialism and that they had given rise to two social wars. On the one hand, there was an acute social conflict between the developing productive forces and the survivals of feudalism and serfdom in society’s economic and political structure. These survivals were obstructing capitalism’s further development and were the objective basis of the people’s struggle against landed property and tsarism.
p On the other hand, in the epoch of imperialism the developing productive forces had outgrown not only feudalserf but also capitalist relations of production. The conflict between the social character of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation had reached a high degree of acuteness. This conflict was the objective basis of the struggle of the proletariat against capitalist slavery.
p The bourgeois-democratic revolution can resolve the first group of socio-economic contradictions but it cannot bring 103 the productive forces into line with the relations of production. While settling one social conflict, it still further lays bare and aggravates another, thus making inevitable the further development of the revolution, the growth of the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution into a socialist revolution.
p As a result the historical place and social role of the bourgeois-democratic revolution changes. Prior to this it had been part of the bourgeoisie’s ascent to power and was carried out under the leadership of the bourgeoisie, that was at the time the spokesman of advanced relations of production and brought them into line with the character of the productive forces.
p In the epoch of imperialism, the bourgeois-democratic revolution that is being accomplished under the leadership of the proletariat, the only really revolutionary class that has become the principal political force, is, in the context of the acute social conflict between labour and capital, an important link in the struggle for the victory of socialism over capitalism.
p The Russian revolution of 1905–1907 was the first bourgeois-democratic revolution of the imperialist epoch. Touching upon that revolution, Lenin wrote: "The degree of Russia’s economic development (an objective condition) and the degree of class-consciousness and organisation of broad masses of the proletariat (a subjective condition inseparably bound up with the objective condition) make the immediate and complete emancipation of the working class impossible.” [103•* Further, he stressed that the democratic stage should not be protracted, that the revolution should not be confined to the attainment of bourgeois-democratic aims: "The complete victory of the present revolution will mark the end of the democratic revolution and the beginning of a determined struggle for a socialist revolution.” [103•**
p Thus, Lenin assessed the bourgeois-democratic and the socialist revolutions under imperialism as two stages of a single revolutionary process. His approach to the world’s revolutionary transformation not as a single act but as a process involving several stages, including a number of different torrents, is of immense methodological importance 104 to the solution of paramount problems of the theory of revolution today.
p The whole world has now become the scene of revolutionary actions, and new links and components of the single world revolutionary process have emerged. Among these are the national-democratic revolutions. With the world socialist system in existence, the national-democratic revolutions range far beyond the aims of the bourgeois-democratic revolutions of the past and pursue the objective not only of national but also of social emancipation.
p Lenin foresaw this when he wrote that "in the impending decisive battles in the world revolution, the movement of the majority of the population of the globe, initially directed towards national liberation, will turn against capitalism and imperialism and will, perhaps, play a much more revolutionary part than we expect”. [104•*
p Bourgeois ideologists propagate various “special” ways of development for countries that have won national liberation. They seek to isolate the national liberation movement from the world socialist community and from the revolutionary working-class and democratic movements in the capitalist countries, and ultimately direct these countries towards capitalist development. Moreover, we encounter nationalistic attempts at debunking the Leninist proposition that an indivisible link exists between the socialist revolutions and the national liberation movement (with the socialist revolutions playing the determining role) with arguments that the developing countries have a special place in the revolutionary transformation of society. An example of these arguments is the Maoist theory of the special geopolitical and racial community of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, which ignores the leading role of world socialism and the international working class.
p National liberation revolutions can solve the main social problems confronting them only in close mutual action with the other main streams of the revolutionary process. The high prestige of the socialist ideas and the historical experience of building socialism in the USSR and other socialist countries, the international support and aid to the national liberation movement from the socialist countries and 105 the working-class movement further social processes in the liberated countries and the overgrowing of democratic into socialist transformations.
Thus, the democratic revolutions of the present day are increasingly clearly becoming a part of the world revolutionary process which is advancing towards socialism.
